Adam Wainwright on Clayton Kershaw’s Contract…and His Own…

Adam Wainwright signed a 5-year, $97.5 million contract. He finished second in Cy Young voting in 2013.

Clayton Kershaw won the Cy Young award…and then signed a 7-year, $215 million contract. One could be forgiven for seeing the difference between first and second place as roughly $117.5 million.

Adam Wainwright knows there’s more to it than that.

“He’s also 25-years old,” said Adam. “Compared to him, I’m an old man.”

But don’t think for a minute that Wainwright regrets signing his own contract.

“That was the deal I wanted to sign,” said Wainwright. “I didn’t have to sign it.”

True. In fact, as Wainwright and Cardinals’ general manager John Mozeliak articulated, had Adam reached the open market, he would have made “a lot” more (Mozeliak) — “absolutely” (Wainwright).

But Adam had an answer to that as well.

“Can’t buy happiness — I’m not gonna’ be happier anywhere else than where I am right now. I love the city, I love going to work every day, I love pulling up to the stadium and seeing the arch — I think that’s just a treat every day.

“Red’s my favorite color now. I feel like I bleed Cardinal red — there’s no other color I wanna’ wear.”

Notes:

– “If you end up being the ace of the staff, you’re gonna’ be really, really good ’cause I’m not going anywhere.” – re: competition for “No. 1″ on the staff

– Comparing pain between losing to Giants in NLCS and to Red Sox in World Series, Adam said losing to the Giants was “a lot more painful cause we let them off the hook” with a 3 games to 1 lead.

– Wainwright discussed a later than usual start to his throwing program as a result of both more innings and a longer season. He started throwing January 1st. He went on to say he doesn’t think his work this spring training should be pushed back much more than one or two starts, adding that spring training is probably longer than they really need anyway.